How ironic of you to bring this to the forefront today. I had already emailed Mr Hykawy yesterday as someone had stated he is a very credible fellow. Below is a copy of our email exchange
"Hi Jon, my name is Chris and I read Charlotte McLeod’s article at HotCopper in which she interviewed you. I just wanted to say it was very refreshing to hear someone not affiliated to a graphite company give their perspective on Telsa’s graphite direction and your thoughts on the future direction graphite companies need to take, especially if they want to battle China.
You did mention a couple of graphite companies in your article. Given the nature of the graphite Panasonic would require – you didn’t mention any graphite companies that have the capacity to provide a clean high purity product.
I’ve come across a company called Zenyatta on the Ventures exchange. They are claiming they can produce high purity synthetic quality graphite, 1.4 million tons of it from their breccia pipe mine. Apparently the NOE is testing their graphite along with 10 other institutions.
Are you familiar with the company? Zenyatta has lost 40% of its market cap since February and is trading in the area of $1.76. Their largest shareholder next to the CEO was CLIFFs who sold their stake in Zenyatta back in the summer.
There are no analysts covering this stock from what I can see. The market cap doesn’t reflect the value of a company with 1.4 million tons of synthetic quality graphite.
If you know anything about Zenyatta and I’m hoping you might, do you think they are the real deal?
Thanks for your time Jon."
"It’s refreshing for me to be able to discuss stocks with someone without having the restrictions that pertain to brokerage analysts hanging over me. I don’t have any trading desk attached to what I do, so I can’t possibly profit from anything I tell you.
Without discussing all details, I am not particularly satisfied by the disclosure provided by Zenyatta. The devil is in the details, and the details aren’t present in what they press release at a level where I can make a judgment about just how bad the devil is, if you follow me. All I can say there is caveat emptor.
Now, take a look at the recent press releases from Canada Carbon. Read them as a recent series, not in isolation. That provides the correct level of detail. And if you notice, Canada Carbon is showing that they can produce, from three-stage flotation alone, the same level of purity that Zenyatta requires three-stage flotation AND a caustic roast and leach to produce. Doing away with a caustic roast, potentially, is very beneficial to cost of production. I’d take a good look at Canada Carbon if I were inclined to look at Zenyatta, too.
As for more conventional companies, both Energizer and Focus have produced battery-grade material, albeit Energizer has a deposit in Africa so they are not going to be considered to provide graphite to Tesla, ever. Also, there is an Australian junior called Sovereign that will probably have the lowest cost of production per tonne of graphite concentrate outside of China. So there are a few other ideas.
Have fun. This is a neat space. Don’t put all your eggs in one graphite basket, but think about investing across a few strong names, and hedge your risk a little."
Jon
